The government’s press office said Mourad Papazian, a co-chairman of the Coordination Council of Armenian Organizations of France (CCAF), was detained at Yerevan airport and deported back to Paris on July 14 because of organizing an angry protest against Pashinian’s visit to France last year.
In a statement, the office said that the ethnic Armenian protesters threw “various objects” at Pashinian’s motorcade when it drove through Paris on June 1, 2021. It described the incident as an “attack” on the prime minister.
The statement also said that Papazian was expelled under an Armenian law that allows the authorities to impose entry bans on foreign nationals posing a serious threat to the country’s “state security or public order.”
Papazian dismissed the explanation, saying that he did not organize or participate in that protest. “This is a lie,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Papazian is also a leading member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), a pan-Armenian party in opposition to Pashinian’s government. He insisted that he was barred from entering Armenia because of his political views and activities.
Papazian argued that he visited Yerevan for at least four times after Pashinian’s June 2021 trip to Paris. “Why did they not ban me from June 1, 2021 to July 13, 2022?” he asked.
Papazian reportedly participated in one of the daily antigovernment rallies launched by the Armenian opposition in Yerevan on May 1, 2022. Opposition leaders have condemned his expulsion.
The CCAF, which is an umbrella structure uniting France’s leading Armenian organizations, denounced the travel ban on July 15 as an “attack on democracy” and “brutal blow” to the French-Armenian community.
Pashinian’s office asserted on Friday that the Armenian authorities “have no reservations about any participant of peaceful protests.”